This poster is a beautiful black and white silkscreen printed on a heavy card stock. Underneath the Museum Glass, the ink is raised and quite prominent on the white paper. This was a piece of “fan art” done by unknown artist, D.E. and likely sold in the parking lot. It’s unlikely that more than 50-100 were printed and who knows how many have survived.
The Shoreline Amphitheatre was built in 1985-1986 as a partnership between Bill Graham and the city of Mountain View. The venue was supposed to open with the Grateful Dead but could not because of Jerry Garcia’s coma in the summer of 1986.
The Dead came roaring back with 86 shows in 1987, the most in any year after 1970 except 1980. These three shows marked the beginning of a transfer of the Dead’s Bay Area outdoor “home court” from the Greek Theatre in Berkeley and the Frost Amphitheatre at Stanford to this much larger facility. The Shoreline held 22,000 in total, about 6,500 reserved seat and the rest spread generously around on the grass.